VOICE OF THE KINGIISHEE. 129 



And it must be allowed that the Greeks seem to have thought 

 of their aiKKvav as a sea bird no less than as a river bird. 

 Aristotle remarks that it goes up rivers, but he seems to 

 have thought of it mainly as a sea bird, and a well-known 

 passage in the seventh Idyll of Theocritus appears to bear him 

 out. But I am not here specially concerned with Greek 

 ornithology, and what Virgil says of the alcyon piping and 

 pluming himself on the shore is perfectly consistent with the 

 habits of the bird. I have myself seen it on the coast of Dorset, 

 'pennas in littore pandens,' and taking flight over a bay full 

 half a mile in width. A greater difficulty lies in the alleged 

 vocal powers of the bird ; they sing, Pliny tells us, in the reeds, 

 and Virgil's alcyon makes the shore echo with his voice. 

 The Kingfisher, so far as I know, is a silent bird except when 

 disturbed ; he will then utter a shrill pipe as he flies away. 

 But I am quite at a loss to explain his singing, except by 

 supposing that this was one of several curious delusions that 

 had gathered round a curious bird.-' 



The other bird mentioned in the lines last quoted is, and 

 perhaps will remain, a puzzle. Mr. Ehoades makes it the 

 Goldfinch, following the commentators, who themselves follow 

 an old tradition which will not bear criticism, and in favour of 

 which I can find nothing more convincing than the argument 

 that acantM^ means in Greek a thorny or prickly tree, while 

 the Goldfinch's favourite food is the seed of the thistle. Let us 



^ E.g. Aristotle gives, and Pliny copies from him, an extraordinary 

 account of the nest and eggs. Nat. Mist. ix. 14. 



* Acalanthis is supposed to be formed by reduplication from acanthis. 



K 



